Insomnia
by dharak
Summary: A certain pilot can't sleep at night. Tormented by nightmares, he finds unlikely company. OC oneshot.


**A little oneshot on one of my OCS from my earlier story, Of Bounty Hunters and Empires. granted, since then i've had new ideas on character appearances and such, but i wont be going into them on this. Mainly, this is just a little something to post, since i haven't posted anythign fro a really long time. **

**and now on with it. comments much wanted at the end ;D**

Takar POV

Sleep. It's something most people take for granted-the ability to drift off into blissful oblivion. Certainly everyone aboard our old ship indulged in sleep often enough. At least, everyone but me.

As a insomniac, I could only achieve oblivion in the early hours of the morning. The journey to that sleep usually is a long and torturous one for me, and only granted a few hours of peaceful rest after a night of shadows and tainted memories. Then everyone else is up, energized, unknowingly mocking me since I knew they had slept well last night. They had gotten the rest and oblivion I couldn't achieve.

As usual, I was still awake on the bridge when the clock struck one in the morning. I rubbed my eyes, feeling them start to sting from the repeated motion. A burning sensation had settled in from being up so long. After years of putting up with it, one would think I would grow to ignore it-but that had certainly never happened.

I lay my hands back on my knees and stared into the dark, the preordained feeling of tired numbness settling in. But it was a numbness that seemed to block my ability to sleep, rather than encourage it.

But gods, I was so tired. Gravity felt like it had increased it's pull tenfold, and a buzzing grew in my ears. I had run out of maintenance and tweaks to do on the Strikeflier. There was only so much I could fine tune before there was nothing left to do until the next night.

Soon after I ran out of things to do, I would begin to feel miserable, since I knew without distractions, the voice would come.

None of the other ailments were anything compared to the voice. It always came about now-the voice had been a contributing factor to my insomnia. Sometimes I could ignore the voice enough to shield myself from the pain it brought, while other times it had reduced me to nearly nothing. I'd given up trying to sleep through it, as waking up in cold sweat, panicked and paralyzed, tended to always be the result. Whether the voice was from my inner mind or just a result of my ample mental scarring, I'd never been sure.

I suspected both. More than that, I felt that my memories were the source. The only time the voice emerged was when they started to flow in the dead of night, or the early morning, like now.

I hated it, with a fierce and burning fashion. The hatred made me want to physically tear that derogatory voice out, along with the memories, and it always felt crushing when I was forced to remind myself that was impossible.

The voice came on schedule, along with the memories-fragmented into short bursts, but always just as painful as a rain of glass shards.

**Well, hello again, my friend. **The voice was sneering, dripping with mock sincerity. **I hope you didn't pine for me to long?**

_I don't pine for you, bastard, _I thought back, putting as much contempt as I could into my thought voice. _Fuck off. _

A moment of silence. Then the memory emerged, rearing in a explosion of light and throbbing. I became submerged in it. I was partially aware that I was still sitting hunched, fists clenched. My mind had been forcibly retracted, though, back into another plane, the world of memories.

_Lying on the rocky ground, breathless, ribs aching. The cruel cries ring in my ears, so many of them, all shouting variations of the same thing. Weakling. And the judgment._

_**The weakling being you, of course. **_The voice is sardonic, critical, and mocking at the same time. Each word is a blow, as damaging as any physical one.**_ The judgment the whip. You should have bled to death. _**

I felt my shoulders slump as the voice brought me down even more. I clutched at my head, blood pounding in my ears. "Shut up," I ground the words out past the block that seemed to have been placed in my throat, like a invisible choker wrapped too tight. I was struck with the irrational fear that a noose was actually primed to choke me-it felt real enough. The scars on my back burned, and a rising tide of anger began to rear, making my vision seem cloudy. The already dark bridge became fuzzy patches of gray and black.

_**Weakling, waste, useless. Cowardly and pathetic, no wonder no one wanted you...no wonder you ran away!**_

The voice laughed gleefully. Before I knew it I had bolted into a standing position, shivering and by now blatantly angry to the point of recklessness. I grasped my head again, entangling my fingers into my hair. My next words came out as a ragged half scream, hoarse and mangled.

"Shut the _fuck_ up! I don't want to hear it anymore!"

The sound seemed to tear at my throat in passing, making it feel raw. All my sudden energy fled, and I collapsed to my knees, bracing my hands on the bridge table. The touch of the cold metal barely registered to me, and neither did the hard impact of the metal floor on my kneecaps. They were detached sensations, like someone else was feeling it. At the time, my entire world was the inner depths of my mind rather than body. At least, it was that way until the lash scars on my back started aching again. The pain was like a tether, drawing me back to the present.

I was brought the rest of the way by hearing the last voice I had thought would comfort me, the one I typically wished would be silenced for just a few minutes daily.

"Eh...Takar?"

Risking a sideways glance past my hair, I saw Lehvahk at the door to the bridge. He was rubbing one blue eye, standing at the bridge door in rumpled bedclothes. The one eye that wasn't covered was shadowed and somber. He had spoken quietly, too, in a tone like he was giving consolation.

Two miracles. Lehvahk acting somber and calm for once. But somehow that didn't satisfy me so much. Not tonight, when there had already been too much silence, and I was yearning for a friendly voice after the torments of the belligerent one.

Although, that didn't change that I wanted to hold on to my pride. Gods take me if I let Lehvahk, of all people, see me in a state of near breakdown.

I repeated this to myself. It seemed not to have as much conviction as usual. I stood again, wincing a little as my knees protested.

_Must've bruised them... _

The thought was vague, half formed and in many ways meaningless. I turned fully to face Lehvahk, a little surprised to see he had moved a few feet closer. He had to tilt his chin up to meet my eyes, while I looked down at him.

His eyes were carrying a look of intense focus. I knew the look-I'd seen it plenty of times when the marksman was lining up a shot. This time, he was trying to pierce my outward appearance of unruffled calm.

I knew that my current facade wasn't a good one. My cheeks felt damp, even though I couldn't recall any tears. I was still trembling a little, and attempted to correct it by interlocking my fingers behind my back. On top of that, my scream had probably drawn the bonehead here to begin with...

None of it was enough. I let my shoulders slump again, then sat down heavily on the bridge couch. I covered my face with both hands. After all, they were windows to the soul. I didn't want anyone to see just how fragmented and scarred mine was.

I heard the ruffle of cloth, Lehvahk's slight grunt as he sat down beside me. For a little while we just sat in silence, a heavy one so thick it felt like a mantel. When I felt it was safe to talk without risking a tremor, I decided to tell him either to sleep, or just ask what he was doing here. Either one would break the godsdamned silence.

'Are you alright? I mean, you were screaming."

"Fine. I don't need help." I choked the words out, almost instantly wishing to call them back. I'd sounded so utterly destroyed, even a bonehead like Lehvahk couldn't miss it.

A sudden wieght settled across my shoulders. I tensed when I realized Lehvahk was giving me a slight hug.

The physical contact was making my heart rate speed up. The compulsive urge to pull away was becoming stronger and stronger. My back ached anew. Unable to stand it anymore, I tried to stand up-only for Lehvahk to increase the pressure of his arm on my neck.

"Come on. It's a miracle no one else woke up." Suddenly he sounded less soft and more grim, the way he was on the battlefield. "If this is some kind of inner battle, I get it. Strange as it seems, I have them too. But good company always helps. How about we talk about things? Neutral stuff we could both care about."

I grimaced. On one hand, I didn't want to spend another moment here. But the alternative was the voice. I sighed, relaxing again. "As long as you remove your arm."

Lehvahk nodded silently. His withdrew the limb and crossed both arms. "We could start with my rifle and the skimmers. We both know some stuff about both, right? And I won't crack any jokes, if you don't want me to."

Despite myself, I was slightly impressed. Lehvahk was crossing off several things from his behavior list that tended to irritate me into a frenzy.

He was making a true effort to act like a friend. The realization awakened a yearning in me-the yearning for someone to comfort me, someone to make me happier and distract me from my problems.

Like a friend. I guess beneath all my hissing dislike, Lehvahk really is one of them.

I nodded slowly. "Okay..." A small smile lit my lips. "Let's talk."

**hope this oneshot is good. I'm trying to think of more for both this category and others, since I'm writing out my longer stories as a whole. I'm planning to post sections of each document after going over them.**

**This is a vague thing, considering. The upcoming story may be different in terms of character appearances and age, but the main focus was the state of mind anyway. **

**Pls comment and tell me how I did :D**


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